His Heir, Her Honor

by Catherine Mann

  “My parents never had an official custody agreement drawn up. I only met him once.” Eloisa leaned forward for her tea, her silver shell charm necklace chiming against her china plate. “I was about seven at the time of my visit.”

  Taking a cup of tea from Shannon, Lilah reviewed what little she knew about the Medina history. “That’s years after the last sighting of him.”

  Eloisa smiled nostalgically. “I didn’t know where we went when my mother and I flew here. It felt like we took a long time in the air. But of course all travel seems to take forever at that age. I never told anyone about the visit after I left here. I may not have had much of a relationship with my father while I was growing up, but I understood that his safety and the safety of my brothers depended on my silence.”

  Shivering, Lilah eyed the blanket made by a mother who would never see her children grow up. “Did you meet them as well?”

  She sipped her tea to warm herself in spite of the sultry island air. A burst of chocolate mint flavor surprised her. Had Carlos informed the staff of her recent craving for chocolate mint? The possibility seeped through her more tangibly than the drink.

  “Duarte and Antonio were here,” Eloisa answered. “Carlos was having treatments at the time.”

  Her teacup rattled on the saucer. Lilah set it down carefully and busied her shaking hands by picking from the assortment of tiny round sandwiches—goat cheese and watercress. “The whole trip must have seemed strange to you, a child so young.”

  “More than you know.” Eloisa smiled as Shannon held out a tray of fruit—she selected a chocolate strawberry with obvious anticipation. “My mother had remarried by then and had another baby.”

  Her words sunk in. “How did your stepfather feel about the trip?”

  “He never knew about the visit, or about any of the Medinas…until recently when the whole world learned too.”

  Shannon settled back into her chair, tucking her bare feet under her, expensive shoes forgotten in the timeless ritual of girl talk. “The day that revelation exploded on the internet is definitely one of the most memorable moments of my life.”

  The everyday sort of gab session wrapped around Lilah with a strange—alien?—feeling. She had so few people in her life to share moments like this. As the only daughter with two much older brothers, as a woman with a high-powered position, she didn’t have many female friends with whom she could kick off her shoes.

  Lilah accepted a refill from Kate. “When our hospital staff first heard the news, the whole place went wild over the fact that one of our own surgeons had been leading a double life.”

  She couldn’t imagine such an existence of secrecy and fear. She’d been so focused on Carlos’s injuries that she hadn’t considered how other aspects of his childhood had shaped him as well.

  Eloisa waved a hand dismissively. “But my childhood, the whole exposé—” she winked at Kate, whose photos had first started that buzz “—it’s all water under the bridge now. I want to tell you about that visit when I was seven. It was amazing, or rather it seemed that way to me through my childish, idealistic eyes. We all walked along the beach and collected shells. He—” she paused, clearing her throat “—um, Enrique, told me this story about a little squirrel that could travel wherever she wanted by scampering along the telephone lines.”

  Lilah reached to clasp the other woman’s hand. “What a beautiful memory.”

  Would these two Medina grandchildren—Eloisa’s baby and Lilah’s child—have the privilege of hearing their grandfather Enrique tell them the same story?

  Reconciling the image of a man who would tell such lovely tales with the notion of a father ignoring his child unsettled Lilah. Greatly. A man who could detach himself came into focus, bringing fears because Carlos had sliced her from his life just as easily.

  Had he learned that skill at his father’s knee? Could she be in for another repeat in the future, regardless of how open he’d seemed in the Colorado kitchen?

  The attorney inside her blared warnings to protect herself, protect her baby against a family with unlimited resources at their fingertips. People with this kind of power rarely surrendered anything. Once Carlos had the proof in hand about the baby, she didn’t doubt for a second that he would claim his child with a fierce determination.

  Would he go so far as to try to gain custody of the baby if she didn’t marry him? And could she put aside a lifetime of reservations about relationships to agree to a marriage of convenience?

  No matter the warm draw of the women around her, the hope of a secure life for her, for her baby—for Carlos—provided a frighteningly heavy allure.

  Carlos guided the four-wheel drive over the two-lane paved road, Duarte beside him and Antonio in the back. Only a couple more minutes until they reached the island clinic—and their dying father. He thought he’d prepared himself for this day.

  But he was wrong.

  Of course he’d been mistaken about a lot of things lately, like assuming Lilah would jump at the chance to marry him. The way she’d thrown his proposal back in his face still grated. As much as he tried to play things calm and laid-back with offers of cheeseburgers and milk shakes, he couldn’t escape the sense that time was slipping away. That if he didn’t settle his life soon, there wouldn’t be another chance for him with her.

  In the backseat, Antonio leaned forward, arms resting on the backs of his brothers’ seats. “Care to share, Carlos?”

  His hands tightened around the steering wheel as he steered deeper into the jungle. “About what?”

  “Really, brother.” Antonio flicked him on the temple. “You’re supposed to be the genius in our family. Who’s the lady friend?”

  “Lilah and I work at the same hospital. She’s the administrator.”

  “A lawyer?” Duarte loaded the final word with cynicism, his arm hooked out the open window.

  Antonio snorted. “You’re the one engaged to a reporter.”

  “Photojournalist,” Duarte corrected softly, possessively.

  Protectively.

  His fiancée had been the one to first break the Medina story to the press with a picture she’d accidentally nabbed. Ironically, that snapshot had brought her and Duarte together and now she handled all carefully controlled press releases about the family.

  Their youngest brother chuckled. “Journalist or photojournalist. Tomato, tom-ah-to.”

  Carlos whipped the car around a corner, toward a one-storey building, white stucco with a red tile roof. The clinic sported two wings, perched like a bird on the manicured lawn. One side held the offices for regular checkups, eye exams and dental visits. The other side was reserved for hospital beds, testing and surgeries. The clinic treated not only the Medinas, but also the staff needed to run a small island kingdom.

  Everything was top-of-the-line, easy enough to finance with an unlimited bank balance. Enrique had insisted on the best for the facility where his son would spend most of his teenage years. Carlos knew every nook and cranny of the place.

  “Ignore Antonio,” Duarte said, bracing a hand on the dash. “I’m happy for you, my brother.”

  Downshifting as he cruised to a stop in front of the double sliding doors, Carlos glanced at his brothers quickly. “Hold off on the congratulations.” Better to be honest than risk them congratulating Lilah. “I still have to convince her.”

  Carlos pocketed the keys and left the vehicle. Guards nodded a welcome without relaxing their stance. Electric doors slid open. A blast of cool, antiseptic air drifted out. The clinic was fully staffed with doctors and nurses, on hand to see to the health concerns of the small legion that ran Enrique’s island home. Most were also from San Rinaldo or relatives of the refugees.

  Antonio pointed to the correct room number, although Carlos would have known from the fresh pair of heavily armed sentinels. Enrique never relaxed security. Ever. Even when at death’s door.

  Duarte stopped Carlos with a hand to the arm. “We’ll wait out here so you can have time to vis
it him on your own first. Call when you’re ready for us to join you.”

  Carlos nodded his gratitude, words stuck in his throat underneath the wad of emotion. Bracing himself, he stepped inside the hospital room.

  The former king hadn’t requested any special accommodations beyond privacy. There were no flowers or balloons or even cards to add color to the sterile space. Just an assortment of machines and IVs and other medical equipment all too familiar to Carlos, but somehow alien in the context of keeping Enrique Medina alive.

  His powerful father was confined to a single bed.

  Wearing paisley pajamas, Enrique needed a shave. That alone relayed how ill the old man was even more than his pallor. Even on a secluded island with no kingdom to rule, the deposed monarch had always been meticulous about his appearance.

  His father had also lost weight since Carlos’s brief visit a couple of months ago for Antonio’s wedding. Still stinging from his screwup with Lilah, Carlos hadn’t been much in the mood for making merry at a wedding. He’d done his family duty then promptly left with the excuse of a patient in need.

  “Mi hijo.” A sigh rattled Enrique’s chest, and he adjusted the plastic tubes feeding oxygen into his nose. His voice was frail, with only a hint of the authority he’d once carried in booming tones.

  “Padre.” He swapped to Spanish effortlessly. His father had always spoken their native language with Carlos most often of his sons.

  Carlos unhooked the chart from the foot of his father’s bed and thumbed through it. “What is this nonsense I hear about you rejecting surgery?”

  “I will not survive the operation.” Enrique waved dismissively, IV clanking against the metal pole. “I will not put anyone’s, most especially my child’s, life at risk on such a remote chance.”

  Looking up from the dire vital stats in front of him in black-and-white, he met his father’s eyes unflinchingly. “You’re quitting?”

  “You are a doctor,” he said with a pride Carlos couldn’t remember hearing before. Their father had railed at each of his sons for leaving the safety of the island for a wide-open world where any nutcase could assassinate them too. “You have read my chart. You can see how weakened I am. I do not have the will to fight any longer.”

  Carlos hung the chart carefully on the bed, suppressing the urge to fling the lot across the room in rage. “Listen to me, old man,” he bit out carefully. “When I begged you to let me end the pain, you refused. You added more nurses and guards to watch me, to push more treatments and physical therapy and any extreme measures you could find to keep me alive, then get me on my feet again.”

  Memories of this place, of the torturous rehab sessions he’d endured bombarded him. Of the months in body casts and traction. Of surgery after surgery, pins and steel rods implanted inside him only to be replaced again the next time he grew. And always, the pain, which he could have handled had it not been for the pity stamped on the faces of his caregivers.

  He’d finally insisted on solitude whenever possible, gritting through one minute at a time.

  “So I will say to you now what you said to me then in the room just next door.” He leaned in until they were nearly nose to nose. “You will not give up. A Medina does not surrender.”

  His father didn’t even blink. “It is out of my hands.”

  “Idiota,” Carlos exploded, spinning away and damn near falling on his ass in the process. He grabbed a utility sink for balance, dragging in heaving breaths.

  “Carlos,” his father’s voice ordered with threads of the younger ruler resonating. “I did not bring you up to be disrespectful.”

  “According to your timetable, I am only days away from becoming the head of this family.” The king of nowhere. “So who is going to stop me from saying what I think? Certainly not you.”

  His father nodded with approval. “You have become tougher over the years.”

  “I am like you, then.”

  “Actually, your mother was the truly strong one. But even she could not push me to change my mind.”

  Mentions of his dead mother stabbed through the last of Carlos’s shaky control. “Your plan now isn’t any better than your plan then.”

  “My intent now is as it was then.” Enrique’s voice faltered. “To protect my children.”

  Carlos clutched the bed rail in a death grip. “Then don’t make us bury another parent prematurely.”

  The hospital room went silent as his father’s pale face turned downright chalky. But damn it all, Carlos would do whatever it took to make his father agree to that transplant.

  This life had already stolen too much from their family too early. Unless he persuaded his father to fight, no surgery would stand even a chance of saving him.

  A way to tether their father’s will more firmly into this world whispered through his brain, a way to have it all. And, yes, he would be manipulating his father in order to keep Lilah, but if that protected both of them? Safeguarded both his father and Lilah? The choice was obvious.

  “Stick around and you’ll get to meet your grandchild. Your heir.”

  Regret creased Enrique’s weary, weathered face. “Eloisa—”

  “I am not talking about her child.” He cut his father short. “You’ll have to hang on longer than a few weeks for the baby I’m referring to.” He took a deep breath in preparation for making that final step and found it easier than he expected. “I’ve brought someone to the island to meet you—Lilah. She and I are expecting a baby.”

  Shock, then a deep sadness creased his father’s face. “Son, I am not so ill that I have forgotten your medical history.”

  “Doctors can be wrong in their dire predictions and hopeless odds.” The possibility did exist. Regardless, he would raise her child as his. “And I am living proof. My child is living proof.”

  He only had to convince Lilah to marry him.

  His father’s eyes went wide—then watery with emotion. Carlos gathered up his tattered self-control, angry with himself for losing it earlier. Everything was too close to the surface in this place—the island, the clinic.

  As much as he ached to be with Lilah tonight, to bury himself in the warm softness of her body, he couldn’t risk it. The next time he faced her, he had to have his game plan prepared. If she caught him unaware now, he would combust.

  Ten

  Lilah bolted upright in her bed.

  She searched the dark room lit only by moonbeams piercing the curtains, momentarily disoriented at being in a strange space and unsure what had woken her. The room felt empty, no sounds other than the rolling gush of waves outdoors. She rubbed the slight curve of her stomach as if she could somehow apologize to her baby for disturbing her—his?—slumber as well.

  Swinging her feet to the floor, she toe-searched along the dense nap of the antique rug until she found her fuzzy slippers. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, she slid from the high bed, curious and now completely awake. Her sleep had been restless anyway, her imagination painting too vivid a picture of a younger Carlos and his brothers escaping San Rinaldo.

  But she refused to get sucked into this extravagant lifestyle simply because her heart hurt for this family. As much as she truly enjoyed beautiful things, she felt stronger in her own world, where hard work had bought every object in her possession.

  She flicked on the bedside lamp, the flood of light confirming she was alone. Where was Carlos now? Asleep in his room on the other side of the sitting area? She hadn’t even been able to ask him about what Eloisa had shared. Carlos and his brothers had stayed late at the hospital, visiting with their father. Duarte had called Shannon, who’d passed along the message to the rest of them. Lilah had tried to hide the sting of hurt over Carlos not phoning her directly…then mentally kicked herself for being selfish. He had overwhelming family concerns. This wasn’t a pleasure trip.

  Still, he could have at least said good-night when he returned.

  Snagging her white cotton robe from the bench at the end of her bed, she slipped her a
rms into the sleeves, covering her matching eyelet nightgown. Carlos’s suite was decorated far more starkly than the other quarters she’d seen, much as his Tacoma home provided a bare essentials place to crash. All burgundy leather, deep mahogany wood and brown tones, the space shouted masculinity without even hints of softness to welcome a woman.

  As she padded away from her four-poster bed toward the sitting area, she felt the floor vibrate under her bare feet. Again. Again. From music?

  She tipped her head to the side, listening more closely to nuances underneath the crash of waves. She swung open the hall door. Melodic runs of a piano swelled from the east wing.

  She considered stepping back into her room—or waking up Carlos. But her pride kept her from entering his room when he hadn’t bothered to speak to her when he came in.

  She stepped farther into the hall. Curious. And determined to tap into her practical lawyer side to find out who was playing, and playing quite masterfully. Nodding to a guard, she continued her search. Hadn’t Shannon said she once taught music? If the woman couldn’t sleep either, perhaps they could talk more, or she could simply listen until she grew groggy again.

  Softly, she followed the hall around corners and down stairs until she stopped outside the almost closed door leading to… She peered inside the circular ballroom she’d only viewed briefly during her tour earlier. Wooden floors stretched across with a coffered ceiling that added texture as well as sound control. Crystal chandeliers and sconces cast shimmering patterns. She looked past the gilded harp to a Steinway grand…

  And Carlos?

  Not Shannon.

  Curiosity melded into something deeper, something more emotional. He sat on the simple black piano bench, his suit jacket and tie discarded over the harp. His gabardine pants were still creased perfectly, a sure sign he hadn’t been anywhere near a bed since returning from the hospital.